Geosciences Department Faculty Publication Series
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Publication Timing and Pacing of Indonesian Throughflow Restriction and Its Connection to Late Pliocene Climate Shifts(2019-01-01) Auer, Gerald; De Vleeschouwer, David; Smith, Rebecca A.; Bogus, Kara; Groeneveld, Jeroen; Grunert, Patrick; Castañeda, Isla S.; Petrick, Benjamin; Christensen, Beth; Fulthorpe, Craig; Gallagher, Stephen J.; Henderiks, Jorijntjedrier conditions. This shift fundamentally reorganized Earth's climate from the Miocene state toward conditions similar to the present. During the Pliocene, the progressive restriction of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) is suggested to have enhanced this shift toward stronger meridional thermal gradients. Reduced ITF, caused by the northward movement of Australia and uplift of Indonesia, impeded global thermohaline circulation, also contributing to late Pliocene Northern Hemisphere cooling via atmospheric and oceanographic teleconnections. Here we present an orbitally tuned high‐resolution sediment geochemistry, calcareous nannofossil, and X‐ray fluorescence record between 3.65 and 2.97 Ma from the northwest shelf of Australia within the Leeuwin Current. International Ocean Discovery Program Site U1463 provides a record of local surface water conditions and Australian climate in relation to changing ITF connectivity. Modern analogue‐based interpretations of nannofossil assemblages indicate that ITF configuration culminated ~3.54 Ma. A decrease in warm, oligotrophic taxa such as Umbilicosphaera sibogae, with a shift from Gephyrocapsa sp. to Reticulofenestra sp., and an increase of mesotrophic taxa (e.g., Umbilicosphaera jafari and Helicosphaera spp.) suggest that tropical Pacific ITF sources were replaced by cooler, fresher, northern Pacific waters. This initial tectonic reorganization enhanced the Indian Oceans sensitivity to orbitally forced cooling in the southern high latitudes culminating in the M2 glacial event (~3.3 Ma). After 3.3 Ma the restructured ITF established the boundary conditions for the inception of the Sahul‐Indian Ocean Bjerknes mechanism and increased the response to glacio‐eustatic variability.Publication Impact of climate change on New York City’s coastal flood hazard: Increasing flood heights from the preindustrial to 2300 CE(2017-01-01) Garner, Andra J.; Mann, Michael E.; Emanuel, Kerry A.; Kopp, Robert E.; Lin, Ning; Alley, Richard B.; Horton, Benjamin P.; Deconto, Robert M; Donnelly, Jeffrey P.; Pollard, DavidThe flood hazard in New York City depends on both storm surges and rising sea levels. We combine modeled storm surges with probabilistic sea-level rise projections to assess future coastal inundation in New York City from the preindustrial era through 2300 CE. The storm surges are derived from large sets of synthetic tropical cyclones, downscaled from RCP8.5 simulations from three CMIP5 models. The sea-level rise projections account for potential partial collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet in assessing future coastal inundation. CMIP5 models indicate that there will be minimal change in storm-surge heights from 2010 to 2100 or 2300, because the predicted strengthening of the strongest storms will be compensated by storm tracks moving offshore at the latitude of New York City. However, projected sea-level rise causes overall flood heights associated with tropical cyclones in New York City in coming centuries to increase greatly compared with preindustrial or modern flood heights. For the various sea-level rise scenarios we consider, the 1-in-500-y flood event increases from 3.4 m above mean tidal level during 1970–2005 to 4.0–5.1 m above mean tidal level by 2080–2100 and ranges from 5.0–15.4 m above mean tidal level by 2280–2300. Further, we find that the return period of a 2.25-m flood has decreased from ∼500 y before 1800 to ∼25 y during 1970–2005 and further decreases to ∼5 y by 2030–2045 in 95% of our simulations. The 2.25-m flood height is permanently exceeded by 2280–2300 for scenarios that include Antarctica’s potential partial collapse.Publication Reconstructing Holocene Glacier and Climate Fluctuations From Lake Sediments in Vårfluesjøen, Northern Spitsbergen(2018-01-01) Røthe, Torgeir O.; Bakke, Jostein; Støren, Eivind W. N.; Bradley, Raymond S.A process-based understanding of lacustrine deposited sediments in Arctic lakes is essential to set the present warming and hydroclimatic shift into perspective. From such a perspective, we can enhance our understanding of the natural climate variability in the Arctic. Here, we present work from the northern coast of Spitsbergen in which we unravel the sediment sequence from a distal glacier-fed lake, Vårfluesjøen. Utilizing recent methodological and technological developments, we base our interpretation on new tools that better visualize and characterize the sediments cores. High-resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (X-ray CT) is used to visualize the lake sediments and quantify the sand-sized particles found in the 210Pb- and radiocarbon-dated sediments, together with a multi-proxy approach including measurement of their physical, geochemical, and magnetic properties. Our findings suggest that Vårfluesjøen (6 m a.s.l.) was isolated from Woodfjorden at c. 10200 ± 260 cal. yr. BP. During the early Holocene, the glaciers in the Vårfluesjøen catchment were considerably smaller than today or had even melted completely. At the start of the Neoglacial period (c. 3500 cal. yr. BP), we find increased glacier activity in the catchment of the lake. X-ray CT reveals an increased frequency of sand-sized particles from 3500 to 1750 cal. yr. BP, suggesting greater wintertime aeolian activity. Starting c. 2250 years ago, we find a progressive increase in snowmelt runoff in the Vårfluesjøen catchment, with peak runoff from 1000 to 750 cal. yr. BP. This coincides with a drop in sand-sized particles, hence less favorable environment for aeolian activity, and implying wetter conditions. During the last 2000 years, there is evidence for high glacier activity between c. 2000 to 900 and 750–350 cal. yr. BP. In between these time spans, less activity is recorded in the periods 1900–1800, 1000–800, and 350–150 cal. yr. BP.Publication Three-dimensional variations of the slab geometry correlate with earthquake distributions at the Cascadia subduction system(2018-01-01) Gao, HaiyingSignificant along-strike variations of seismicity are observed at subduction zones, which are strongly influenced by physical properties of the plate interface and rheology of the crust and mantle lithosphere. However, the role of the oceanic side of the plate boundary on seismicity is poorly understood due to the lack of offshore instrumentations. Here tomographic results of the Cascadia subduction system, resolved with full-wave ambient noise simulation and inversion by integrating dense offshore and onshore seismic datasets, show significant variations of the oceanic lithosphere along strike and down dip from spreading centers to subduction. In central Cascadia, where seismicity is sparse, the slab is imaged as a large-scale low-velocity feature near the trench, which is attributed to a highly hydrated and strained oceanic lithosphere underlain by a layer of melts or fluids. The strong correlation suggests that the properties of the incoming oceanic plate play a significant role on seismicity.Publication Large Ensemble Modeling of the Last Deglacial Retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Comparison of Simple and Advanced Statistical Techniques(2016-01-01) Pollard, David; Chang, Won; Haran, Murali; Applegate, Patrick; DeConto, RobertA 3-D hybrid ice-sheet model is applied to the last deglacial retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet over the last ∼ 20 000 yr. A large ensemble of 625 model runs is used to calibrate the model to modern and geologic data, including reconstructed grounding lines, relative sea-level records, elevation–age data and uplift rates, with an aggregate score computed for each run that measures overall model–data misfit. Two types of statistical methods are used to analyze the large-ensemble results: simple averaging weighted by the aggregate score, and more advanced Bayesian techniques involving Gaussian process-based emulation and calibration, and Markov chain Monte Carlo. The analyses provide sea-level-rise envelopes with well-defined parametric uncertainty bounds, but the simple averaging method only provides robust results with full-factorial parameter sampling in the large ensemble. Results for best-fit parameter ranges and envelopes of equivalent sea-level rise with the simple averaging method agree well with the more advanced techniques. Best-fit parameter ranges confirm earlier values expected from prior model tuning, including large basal sliding coefficients on modern ocean beds.